Friday, May 13, 2016

Crimson Blades 2 Review

(Yes, I made is review of this game before, but that was a test of CharGen; this is an actual review. Pardon the spelling errors and the length of the review; that is how I review things.)

A while back, I purchased the first edition
of Crimson Blades: Crimson Blades Dark Fantasy RPG (core rulebook) and
the Crimson Lords Dark Fantasy RPG Supplement. Together, they were a
great ruleset, offering a lot of neat rules and ideas. That I found out
that there was a new edition in the works, and Simon was nice enough to
send me files with a sample of the newer rules and content. Although,
largely unchanged in setting, save for a better map, rule-wise, it was
way better that what came before. The rules are more consistent and
easier to run. I love it!

Originally, the second edition was
going to be in a box-set, much like Astonishing Swordsmen &
Sorcerers of Hyperborea, containing sheets, fold-up map, (possibly) dice
and four rule booklets, each dedicated to a content of the game:

Through reasons beyond his control, he was unable to make that happen, so he published the game in a single book.

"For the honor of Greyskull!!"

(Sorry, it was that sword that made me say that)

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The
rules are simple and play like the old Basic/Expert D&D rules, but
the game uses d6s exclusively. The game is tailored to play in the sort
of fantasy seen with Conan of Cimmeria and Elric of Melniboné.

The
biggest change between editions is how it handles dice rolls. In the
first edition, what you need to roll was based on how you kick-down and
hear though doors: roll a d6, with a set number (e.g. 4+; lower, the
better) based on ability score or class ability (respectively). Some
tasks (including saves) would be based on ability scores, and would not
change through level progression, while other tasks would be based on
level, with no consideration to high or low ability. Doing anything
"untrained" would require a roll of 6 or more on a single die. The
second edition streamline the possess by requiring only 4+ on a single
die to succeed, high and low ability adjusting all rolls (from -1 to
+2), and granting additional dice (thus increasing ones chances of
rolling a successful die) through level progression. This also removes a
number of ability-based checks like Strength Feat, Lore Roll, Notice
Roll and the like.

One of the biggest hooks that got me into the
game in the first place is how it handles Hit Dice. Unlike D&D, Hit
Dice is not equal to one's level. Hit Dice in this game determines two
things: Hit Point total and attacks per turn. Also unlike D&D, you
do not keep a running tally of Hit Points per level. Every time you gain
a new level, you re-roll your hit points. If you rolled higher that
your old total, record the new score. If it equal to or less, than keep
the old total. Although, in the new rules, you'll always get the minimum
of one hit point per level, which makes hit point totals per level less
stagnate. Hit Dice also features a bonus that is added to hit point
rolls, but is only applicable to the current level and has no effect on
combat rolls. Your Hit Dice is also the number of attack dice you can
roll in a single turn. If you have two or more HD, you can use them on a
single enemy, or split them between different opponents. You may
convert extra dice for bonuses (for yourself or to aid an ally in
combat), in order no hit tougher targets. Heavy weapons on the other
hand use only one attack die, but the damage dice rolled is equal to
your HD, and it is totaled! What that means is that instead of handling
damage dice per attack, each effected by Strength and armor, heavy
weapons can dish out more damage, with armor being less effective.
Originally, defense was much like AC, where armor effected the
opponent's ability to hit. Now, AC — called Defence Class (DC) — is
based on DEX, shield-use and level bonuses. Armor now absorbs damage,
making it possible to not take any damage.

The effects of this
system, compared to D&D, is to prevent high level characters from
becoming human pincushions, with the trade off being that high level
characters are granted more killing power. If find this option to be way
better than D&D, as characters who gain level can quickly cut
through mobs and down powerful beasts, instead of being bloated
meat-shield, who spend all day hacking at monsters.

Another neat
rule is its simple encumbrance system. A thing to note, is that I tend
to ignore encumbrance. I handle movement and what a character can carry
in the laziest way possible. This "Thing" system is insanely simple, and
reminds me of the Stone-based (units of 14 lbs.) encumbrance systems
used in some of the newer retro-clones. In this game, weapons, armor and
gear are rated as "Things." Most weapons, as well as the shield, count
as a "Thing." Armor range for one to four "Things." The clothes on your
back, some basic adventuring gear and pocket change all counts as only
one Thing, but beyond this, what you are carrying is subject to the DM's
discretion. In D&D, the thresholds to how much a character can
carry is ether static (Basic/Expert), or requires a separate lists,
based on STR score (Advanced). The amount of Things a character can
carry are such a low numbers, that STR bonus adjusts them without
complication.

Your class options in this game are: Barbarian,
Griot, Fighter, Mountebank, Thief, Sorcerer, Wayfarer, and the inhuman
Dendrelyssi race. This is not a game about characters turning into
virtual demigods, so levels are caped at 10th level for all classes.
Also, you cannot
multi-class.

Fighters are your basic D&D Fighter, but with
the ability to preform the kinds of stunts you'll see in Errol Flynn
films. Barbarians are your typical berserkers with survival skills and a
reliance on agility than heavy armor. Griot are African-styled Bards.
Unlike the standard D&D Bard, a Griot can summon spirits to
supplement their knowledge. They also have a lot of political clout.
Wayfarers play out like D&D Monks, but are strange runaways with
mystic abilities. Thieves are like their D&D equivalent, but are
focused towards tomb-robbing and second-story work, and possesses no
slight-of-hand ability. That ability goes to Mountebanks, who are like
Thieves in many ways, but their skills are based on being con-artists.
Where a Thief still uses Dexterity as a Prime Requisite, the Mountebank
uses Charisma. Sorcerers are like D&D Magic-Users, but they can use
meany types of weapons, and can even wear armor. They also benefit from
the new rules governing the summoning of unearthly spirits, but not to
the same degree as the Dendrelyssi. The Dendrelyssi are a race of
white-skin dark elves. Much like D&D Elves, they are as skilled with
a sword, as they are skilled with the mystic arts. Their ability to
cast spells is weak compared to Sorcerers, but they are exceptional
summoners.

Most of the classes have a special skills akin to
Thieves' Abilities. They have between three to six skills. The player
sets priorities to each skill. The priorities are set as Primary,
Secondary and Teriary. From the start, Primary skills offers the best
odds of success, while Teriary skills have the lowest odds. As
characters progress in level, the odds improve more rapidly with Primary
skills as they grant two dice and give more dice sooner, while Teriary
skills start you with one die improve only slightly. Mountebanks and
Thieves, who have six skills each, can set two skills for each priority.
Wayfarers on the other hand, only have four skills, so they can only
place one skill in Primary and in Secondary, with the remaining two in
Teriary. Saving throws use the same rule. You have the same set of saves
as in 3e D&D, with Fort, Ref and Will. Saves by default advance as
Teriary skills, but a favorite save, as determine by class, is treated
as a Primary skill.

There are other classes, but they are NPCs
only. In this case, they are the Fleshcrafter, Merchant, Royal Redeemer
and Witch. Fleshcrafters are Dendrelyssi who are skilled in torture and
surgery. Merchants are expert hagglers and travelers. The Royal Redeemer
are inquisitors who hunt down Dendrelyssi and their sympathizers. And
the Witch has a limited cast spells ability (though her familiar), but
can brew potions.

Much like Elric of Melniboné, the game is set
to the "eternal balance of order and discord", and as such, you can
choose to play as Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic. The book makes good note
of each of their strengths and shortcomings, without making any side
inherently good or evil. Its mostly about being conservative in your
outlook (Lawful), or being recalcitrant (Chaotic).

The spell
system in this game is the same as D&D, and does not offer much in
new rules or ideas. The rules for summoning are wholly original.
Whenever a class gains the ability to summon, the player must determine
what kind of spirit the character can summon. The are: Elementals (air,
earth, fire and water), Demons (of Combat, Desire, Knowledge, Pain,
Possession, Protection and Travel) and Undead (corporeal and
non-corporeal). Dendrelyssi and Sorcerers can choose what type of spirit
they can summon — if they meet Intelligent requirements — then they
must roll to see would type they are able to summon. Some classes, like
the Griot, are limited to Undead or Demons of Knowledge, while Merchants
can call on Demons of Travel. Intelligent and powerful summoners can
even summon the lords of these spirits: Elementals Rules, Demon Lords,
Liches or Vampires. Instead of the usual D&D-styled magic items,
demons can be installed in objects or even people. Demons of Combat can
be placed inside weapons to imbue great power to the welder. Demons of
Protection can be placed in armor, doors, locks, chests and any other
barriers. These items can be dangerous and fickle to use, but they can
be awesomely game-braking in the right hands, and that is not a bad
thing.

Beyond the core dice mechanics, another major change
between edition is the complete removal of Experience Points. The reason
for this is that the game is not a dungeon-crawl, nor a hack-n-slash.
The goal of this game is to focus on adventure, exploration, mystery,
intrigue, drama, politics or anything else that motivates the players
beyond just mindless (and eventually boring) killing and looting. In
fact, there are no Treasure Types, nor list of random treasure to be
fund in this book. The system to rate monsters and encounters by level
is still there to help the GM rate the difficulty of an encounter should
it get bloody, but is no longer a critical component to the game. Based
on how you look at it, this may be a good thing or a bad thing, but to
me, it really cuts-down on the time it takes to do a post-game audit.

Weapons
are categorized into Weapon Class (Vary Light, Light, Medium and
Heavy), and further divided into melee, throwing and range, with example
for each. Weapon Class are the same as weapons sizes in Basic D&D,
but with different damage dice, or in the case of Heavy, the way you
apply damage (although, Medium and Heavy weapons have the same d6 damage
dice). Vary Light is basically an unarmed strike or throwing
stars/darts (d2 damage die). Armor is categorized into Armor Class
(Light, Medium-Light, Medium and Medium-Heavy and Heavy), with each
class determining weight (in "Things"), Damage Reduction, Defence Class
and penalty to physical actions that requires agility or stealth.

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The
game comes with a setting installed called The Crimson Lands. The world
was once ruled by a race of amoral, degenerate albino-like elves called
the Dendrelyssi, who treated other races, not notably humans, as slaves
and lab rats. They are like D&D Drows with their cruel and wicked
nature, but they
are modeled on the appearance of Elric of Melniboné, with their pale
skin, although there eyes are whited-out instead of being pink. They
used demons and sorcery to maintain their vast empire. Long ago, their
empire crumbed, humans rebelled — eventually forming their own nations —
and the ageless Dendrelyssi are barren and slowly dying out. The
Crimson Lands is made of around half a dozen small continents,
surrounded by several large islands and archipelagos. There are around a dozen of human nations, with the Dendrelyssi largely contains to an small continent to the east. Language is mostly derivative of High Dendrelyssi: the language of Dendrelyssi royalty. As the lands are covered in the ruins of ancient Dendrelyssi
cities and temples, there are a lot of strange mysteries and horrors
lurking in the shadows, waiting to be uncovered by the greedy and
foolish.

Braking from the standard quasi-medieval esthetic overused in most fantasy RPGs, Crimson
Blades tries for a greater sense of orientalism that inspired pulp
fantasy in the first place. The art chosen for the book (mostly public
domain and stock art form Sine Normine Publishing) evokes an orientalesthetic throughout.Save for Goblins and Beastmen, you'll find a lack of Tolkienesque races.
You will find some Lovecraftian, along with classical Greek creatures,
as well as some iconic D&D monsters with a name-change in the
monster list. Much like the 5e monster list, there are a good number of
typical human NPC types (Bandits, Cultists, Townfolk, etc.), and vary few Orc-like
humanoid adventure fodder. After a while in D&D, all those
Goblinoids become the same, so having more human types available is
refreshing in any RPG. The one predominant humanoid monster found in the Crimson Lands are the Beastmen. They include a list of minor
mutations akin to the Hoards of Hades from the MMII, thus keeping them
from looking all the same. In a way, they are like Broo form RuneQuest, but way primitive and beastly.Even with all the added killing-power
of high-level character's, there are monsters that surpass the ability of a party of 10th level characters to slay. Like in any RPG, such monsters help keep players on their toes, and when used sparingly, is good to give the players a memorable encounter, without loosing all awe to ease or repetition.
The
book is filled with DM advice that helps adventure go beyond the
generic dungeon setting. You'll find find hooks and ideas for running
adventures in a wide range of environments (cities, wilderness, seas,
old ruins, etc.), and without throwing huge lists of random encounters
(although, is a list, but its only takes up a single page). The primary
advice is not to railroad the party into a pre-scripted story, as players
would just derail such efforts, but to allow the players to determine
where they want to go, and to figure out their own way out of a given
situation. One of the fun things I enjoy doing, is reading the list of
hooks and figuring what book or movie the ideas came form. Some people
might find that unoriginal or lacking in creativity, but any DM worth
their salt knows how that the best adventures takes liberally form great
works of fiction, and the less the players know, the better! I do this a
lot. Plus, anyone who casually pitches the idea to incorporate the
premise of Alien (1979) in a fantasy game is a winner in my book,
because, even with all the clues and foreshadowing, the players will
still fall for it. Yes, if they figure it out off the bat, likely avoid
it the situation (as they should). But in most cases, they would find
out once they are neck-deep into the adventure, and when they do, they
go into total panic mode! (Its good to be DM!)

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So
yeah, this game does a lot differently. The rules are simple enough to
be altered easily. With some changes here are there, you can use the
rules for nearly any setting. The setting by itself strays from the same
old vanilla fantasy. Which I find strange
and funny, as I need an escape like this, for my escapist hobby.
Although, I have not had a chance to get the full feel of the game as I
have not had the change to house-rule the hell out of the game. I don't
always run a game "by the book", so I cant wait to see would I'll add,
and what I'll drop. I'm like a grease-monkey with RPGs. To me, tweaking a
game engine is high art and a way of life. I know there are rules form
Conan (Mongoose Publishing) and 5e D&D that might work well with
this game.Recently,
I discovered an old, iconic third-party D&D setting form Judges
Guild called The Wilderlands. I quite enjoy the premises of the setting,
but their are a number of minor issues I would change about it (and not
the odd skin colors; as a Carcosaian fan, I don't mind that much at
all). If I was to run a Wilderlands-inspired setting, I would strongly consider run it with this ruleset.